Masters Swimming Canada - History

History

Masters Swimming is a club-based organization that maintains a list of all Masters clubs in the country, and oversees structured swimming programs for adults which include competitions in pools or open water. Its primary objectives include fun, fitness, friendship and participation.

The history of swimming as a sport and a fitness activity for adults was stimulated just over a century ago with the rebirth of the Olympic Games, the growth of "leisure time" among certain components of society and the recognition of the relationship between exercise and health, quality of life, etc. Adult fitness swimming became popular in Europe, particularly in Germany, in the early part of the last century. The Germans, realizing the value of swimming for fitness, rebuilt their adult swim programs after the devastation of World War II.

The YMCA also became supportive of aquatic fitness at this time and built pools in many of their larger facilities where they encouraged adult lane swim. Until "the Y" introduced circle swimming in the thirties, only two swimmers could swim per lane. The Y also introduced the idea of putting a line on the bottom of the pool under the centre of each lane to help the swimmer swim straight and avoid collisions.

It is likely that the idea of a structured adult swimming fitness organization was introduced by the Germans to members of the United States and other occupying forces after the second world war, as it was primarily through the US military that this idea was first introduced into the Americas. Foremost among those involved was Captain Ransom J. Arthur, M.D., who by his leadership and commitment to improving the health of adults through swimming established the first Masters swimming programs in the US. It is believed that he first used the term “Masters” swimming to describe the sport around 1960.

The first Masters competitions in the Americas took place in the US during the sixties. These were local, often very small and by today's’ standards, quite unprofessional. The first US Masters National Championship took place on May 2-3 May 1970 at Amarillo, Texas with 46 competitors. It was agreed at this time to set up a national Masters organization to be called United States Masters Swimming. They held their first annual meeting at Lake Placid, NY in 1971 and Arthur was elected President. The US swimming community, consisting of the children and youth swim clubs, the college swim programs and the state and national elite swimming programs, were not impressed with this development and basically wanted to have nothing to do with Masters swimming. This was probably a good thing as it allowed US Masters to develop their own parallel organization to USA Swimming and take full responsibility for their sport. As time went on it became clear that Masters were contributing greatly in a number of ways to aquatics in the US.

The first Canadians to become involved were Professor Hud Stewart of Osgoode Hall Law School, a Canadian track and field Olympian who had become keenly interested in adult fitness, and his friend Al Waites, entered the second US Masters National Championship, again at Amarillo, on May 7 and May 8, 1971 with 106 US swimmers. Hud was so impressed with this development that on his return to Toronto he established Canada’s first Masters Club, “The University of Toronto Masters” swimming at Hart House and consisting primarily of University staff but including some older students who were not on the University swim teams.